There's a big sale on the Origin Store celebrating the first anniversary of the launch of EA's online store. They are offering a 40% discount on several PC digital download special editions. Also, MCV notes a Q&A from last week on GameSpot with EA's David DeMartini, who calls the service's first year "a huge success." He also offers a criticism of Origin's stickiness, saying this is something they need to address going forward. "Being self-critical of Origin, I would say it's not sticky enough. And we want to put features in place where we fully take advantage of your friends lists and gameplay activities amongst all of your friends so you can compare achievements," he says. "We want you to be able to challenge your friends, and to challenge your friends to play other EA games to try and achieve things that might even be across EA games. A lot of people are loyal to us and we need to reward them with that stickiness, so we're looking in that direction."

Orogogus wrote on Jun 18, 2012, 11:47:One of the big complaints about Origin is that their prices are terrible, and now I guess one one of the big complaints is going to be that their prices are too low. Yay gamers.

The problem is that EA is a) being hypocritical, b) charging too much for games in the first place, and c) trying to paint itself as the victim.

I agree with part b 100%, and part c.But not part a. The guy you're saying is a hypocrite has nothing to do with the pricing in Europe. It's his belief that deep discount sales damage IP value in North America, so he will not do it in North America. He has no control over, or probably much care about, what Europe does.So consumers in North America get a bit screwed and have little incentive to use Origin. No big deal, I think Europe probably gets screwed on pricing far more often than we do.